There was little actual character development for all Hiccup spent the movie talking about finding himself. We jump through a lot of growing moments really quickly. Instead of depth we just get a lot of characters and dragons thrown at us. We meet his mother. She’s cool I guess. The supporting kids all get a little more personality. There is the redeemable bad guy and the real bad guy. There is a swarm of different dragons that we never really get the names of. All of them seem to breathe fire. Kind of lazy after how creative the first movie was with powers.

The plot was weak. Basically a guy with a bigger dragon tries to take over everything. In the end he is vanquished and disappears. Which is odd since they fought on an island. We never really get any explanation. Why can this guy control dragons through fear? Why are there two king dragons just chilaxing with humans when they are supposedly really rare? Why is Toothless the only Night Fury?

Basically, at the end of the movie I had so many questions about things that were pretty glossed over that it probably would have been better just not to see it.

Granted, there were some cute things. The elder lady has a bunch of little dragons making her the equivalent of a cat lady. Two of the kids fight over the female twin because there is a distinct lack of other mate options. She goes for the mysterious bad boy with the bulging muscles.

But honestly, no little jokes were enough to make we want to watch this movie again. I yawned more than I laughed.

This movie suffered from too many ideas in the end. They gave us the mother plot, and the growing up plot, and the big bad guy plot, and the mind control killing plot, and a slew of other little ideas and concepts and failed to delve deeply enough into any of them. I would rather have seen this go Lilo and Stitch and have a M.O.T.D. television show than throw everything into one fairly short movie and act like it was the best it could be.

Instead of igniting emotions within me I felt entirely removed from the whole thing. I didn’t even care when they won. I didn’t care when things died no matter how many characters cried. I don’t know if it was the voice acting that didn’t fully relay the emotion or if it was the animation that didn’t pause on the right moments or if there were just too many ideas not fully explored but I found the whole thing difficult to connect with.

It is probably a great movie for kids but it just lacks the zazzle I was expecting, even during the battles.

Prognosis: Don’t waste your money. It will be just as good on your television at home.